Flu Spread Opens Hospital Wings in U.S. as Cases Rise

A tent set up for patients with flu symptoms, just outside the emergency entrance at the Lehigh Valley Hospital on Jan. 10, 2013, in Allentown, Pa. The Pennsylvania Department of health designated flu as now "widespread" throughout the commonwealth. Disease-trackers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention prepare to release new data on the flu outbreak tomorrow. Photographer: Matt Rourke/AP Photo

Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Hospitals in the U.S. are adding
more beds and boosting staff to meet increasing admissions of
patients stricken by the influenza outbreak that prompted Boston
to declare a health emergency in the city.

Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, is adding 40
new beds after a 20 percent jump in emergency admissions, while
Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has opened a wing
that wasn’t being used so it could handle additional patients.
At the University of Chicago Medical Center, patients with
antibiotic-resistant infections, who are normally isolated, are
being paired together to make more room for flu cases.

“We’ve expanded as much as we can and opened up an area of
beds,” Stephen Epstein, an emergency room physician at Beth
Israel Deaconess, said in an interview. “The hospital is full.
We’re holding admitted patients in the ER.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
released new data on the flu outbreak today showing 47 U.S.
states reported widespread flu, an increase from 41 as of Dec.
29. With at least six to eight weeks of the flu season remaining
and waiting rooms already swamped, Boston is working to avoid a
more dire situation, said Barbara Ferrer, director of the city’s
Public Health Commission.

“I don’t think we’re in a more serious situation than some
other cities, but we want to be very proactive,” she said in a
telephone interview. “If we don’t dampen the epidemic we will
be in serious trouble in the city of Boston. I don’t want to see
our caseload continue to grow at this rate.”

Boston Cases

In a report released this morning, the Boston Public Health
Commission raised the number of confirmed influenza cases thus
far to 750. The total number confirmed in the city during the
previous season was 70. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino declared a
public health emergency Jan. 9, when the commission said 700
confirmed cases had been reported.

Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston yesterday declared a
“code amber” because of the influx flu patients, said Lori
Schroth, a hospital spokeswoman. The code is used to alert
hospital staff to plan for increased numbers of patients because
of disasters and emergencies.

“The bottom line: it’s flu season,” Thomas Frieden,
director of the CDC, said today during a conference call with
reporters. “Most of the country has seen the flu and this will
continue for a number of weeks.”

At the University of Chicago Medical Center, 166 people
have been confirmed with the flu, including 31 cases in the last
week, as of Jan. 8. Last year, 43 people tested positive the
entire season, said hospital epidemiologist Emily Landon.

Making Room

The Chicago hospital is now at a point where it can’t keep
patients with antibiotic-resistant diseases in isolated rooms
because it needs their beds for flu patients, Landon said. The
hospital is putting them with other patients with the same
illness to free up beds. People who test positive with the same
strain of flu are put together as well.

“Our hospital is more full than it’s been in all the years
I’ve been here,” Landon said. “We can’t afford to have these
rooms have just one patient for isolation. I’ve been here since
2003 and we’ve never done that before.”

In Minnesota, 401 people were hospitalized with the flu and
23 died from it through the first week of 2013, according to the
Minnesota Department of Health. For all of last season, 552
people were hospitalized and 33 died.

Minnesota Plan

Hospitals statewide have created a task force to respond to
the outbreak and coordinate care, said Patrick Devlin of
Fairview Health Service, a provider with 50 primary-care clinics
and six hospitals in the state. While many hospitals in
Minnesota are close to capacity, “we’re not to the point of
putting people on cots in hallways,” he said, because officials
report the number of beds available twice a day to ensure
patients can be properly treated.

In Houston, the Methodist Hospital System has seen an
increase in patient volume of 20 percent, which is attributable
to the flu, said Jeff Kalina, the associate director of
emergency medicine. The majority of the patients are people who
didn’t get the vaccine, he said.

“It’s not too late to get the vaccine,” Kalina said.
“This flu season is probably going to last into March and
April.”

Influenza normally causes symptoms such as coughing,
sneezing, headaches and body aches, fever, chills, and sometimes
vomiting and diarrhea. Severe cases of flu are normally seen in
very young and very old people whose immune systems are too weak
to fight off the virus, and annual vaccination is recommended
for vulnerable people and those who come into contact with them.

While flu activity is high in the U.S. and started early it
may be decreasing, based on trends for the week Dec. 30 through
Jan. 5, the CDC said today in a weekly surveillance report.

State Reports

Twenty-four states and New York City reported high levels
of out-patient visits for flu-like illness, according to the
report. Sixteen states had moderate levels, five had low levels,
and one state, Hawaii, saw minimal levels of the illness.

Some states may be getting past their peak, the CDC said.

Vaccine manufacturers produced 135 million doses of the
immunization this year and had distributed 128.1 million as of
Jan. 4, the CDC reported yesterday. At least 112 million people,
35 percent to 40 percent of those eligible, have gotten a flu
shot this season, Michael Jhung, a CDC medical officer in the
influenza division, said in a telephone interview.

Vaccine Supply

“There is plenty of vaccine available, though people may
not find it at the first pharmacy they go to,” Jhung said.
“It’s perhaps even more important to be vaccinated, and
quickly, because of the high rate of influenza we are seeing
now.”

It takes two weeks for full protection from the vaccine to
kick in, Jhung said.

The effects of the 2012-2013 flu season are hitting New
York hospitals especially hard in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.
Brooklyn’s Lutheran Medical Center was already seeing an 11
percent increase in patient visits before the flu outbreak
because of damage to a nearby hospital from the storm.

In addition to opening new beds to meet the demand,
Lutheran Medical Center has also ordered 25 new stretchers.
Employees are working overtime, and the hospital is hiring
temporary doctors to beef up staff, said Bonnie Simmons,
chairwoman of emergency medicine at the hospital.

“It is a bad season,” Simmons said. “It started for us
in mid-December and it grew slowly and consistently.”

Long Island

At North Shore University Hospital on New York’s Long
Island, emergency room visits have increased as much as 30
percent and there has been a spike in hospitalizations, said
Andrew Sama, chairman of emergency medicine.

“It has been as bad a flu as we have seen in at least five
years,” Sama said. “It is stressing the infrastructure quite a
bit.”

The hospital has brought in extra beds and staff, and has
doctors and nurses working overtime as patients have to wait
longer than usual in the emergency room. The hospital is seeing
a lot of patients with the flu who received this year’s flu
shot, he said.

“We have been hit particularly hard in New York at the
moment, but everyone is probably going to have their moment in
the sun,” Sama said in a telephone interview. “It’s probably
going to be the worst at doctors’ offices and urgent care
centers and really bad with elderly having complications.”